La Chapelle Cafe

 While I know we all ventured here as a class, I couldn't help but want to return here to see about this bar. It had been called, by one of the bartenders, 'the gay bar in town', and with it's technicolor light display making it an eye-catching stop on a nighttime stroll along the Saône, it nearly begged for attention. I decided I would come back another night to sus it out. 

Upon entering, it's got a laid back vibe- even on a Friday night when more people are out to party, it seemed like most of the clientele inside the bar were just there for drinks, and not nearly as rowdy as some of the bars I've been to here. The music is a fun mix of cheery pop, ABBA and Britney Spears spliced with jazz. Given that it's a gay bar, it's not entirely surprising that most of the occupants are men in their late twenties to early thirties. The lighting is dim and cast in blues and purples. In one corner, there's a TV that (oddly) has some sort of fireside ambience video playing, sometimes switching to a relaxing beach. It's cozy and not threatening, but given it's location and the ambience of the place, it seems a bit like the tourist's version of a gay bar. However, the seating was easy enough to find, and the bartenders were blessedly patient with my poor hearing and poor French, helping me order my drink. It's not the sort of place where one really approaches strangers it seems, as most people were already with freind groups and rarely let their eyes wander away from their companions or their drinks. Inside, while the bartenders and the bar-goers may not be hiding anything about who they are, there's not anything inside the bar's decor that immediately proclaims itself to be a gay bar. It is sleek and comfortable, and while one could probably call it 'fruity', I'm not sure if I could call it queer. 

This has long been a sort of dichotomy that I've found interesting. Over the past decade or so, with the normalization of homosexuality in the Western world, there's been a bit of a departure between gay men and the rest of the queer community. Whereas La Chapelle was a place for gay men, and both the clientele and the vibes inside reflected that, The L Bar (which operates as Lyon's only lesbian bar) still felt like a queer space. At the L bar, it seemed like people who look any way and of any proclivity were actively encouraged and welcomed. This is not to say those people were not welcomed at  La Chapelle, but at the end of the day it was a space creat
ed by and for gay men, and that is a very different thing than a queer space. It's hard to describe the difference, but the best way I know to put it into words is the difference between going to a club meeting that put out flyers saying 'open attendance', and going to a club meeting because a friend invited you there. In the latter example, while you have been invited, it is ultimately not a space created to be open, and upon entering you will be the outsider. I'm reminded a bit of the discussion we had at the LGBTQ+ center, where it was said that, while gay marriage had been legalized, there was still a lot of discrepancies in terms of the rights allotted to queer people as a whole. A similar thing happened in the U.S.- once gay men got the right to marry, it seemed like their fight was over, and a portion have begun to try and distance themselves from the community. 

You'll have to forgive me if I ramble about this subject. As a transgender man, I think a lot about the difference about being queer and being gay. There's some spaces that I simply feel I just don't belong in with cis gay men, where I feel as though there's been a line drawn in the sand. In queer spaces, however, I will know that it is a space where there is no question whether or not I am welcome. It's a hard thing to explain, and I promise I'm not using this as a cop out- but unless you're in the queer community, it's hard to see these partitions that have been put up between the 'G' and the rest of the acronym.

However, this is not to in any way be negative towards La Chapelle! The only real critique I had there were the drink prices. I'm gay, not rich. Otherwise it was a pleasant experience, but one that did make me think about how the queer community now addresses itself and those who align themselves with it and those who don't.

Le Petit Salon

 

I am not a big club person. I would much rather spend a Friday night drinking wine at home with my friends rather than going out. But one weekend, my friends finally convinced me that I just had to come to out with them, so I finally gave in. We made the trek over the bridge to the 7th district and stood in line for the club. I think it's kind of funny that this was the place my straight friends ended up taking me to, out of all the possible clubs in Lyon, we ended up at one with more queer men than straight men. Le Petit Salon is not generally marketed as a queer club, but I quickly discovered how queer-friendly it is once I was inside. There were a lot of 'older' young adults (mid 20s-30s) which made the club feel more sophisticated. Usually clubs are filled with 18 year-olds looking to party, so it was a nice change to have a more mature group of people. There was a main dance floor leading up to a DJ that was filled with people dancing, as well as multiple bars, an indoor smoking room, and another smaller dance floor. The music they played was not like other clubs; it was purely house music. I enjoyed it a lot more than other clubs I've been to because it felt like a very safe space for queer people. As a queer woman, I can typically quickly identify if the space I'm in will allow me to fully be myself. Sometimes there are situations where I know I wouldn't be able to hold my girlfriend's hand or show any affection towards her because of the place I'm in. It was pretty much the opposite case in Le Petit Salon. There were a lot of queer men dancing and having a good time. They were able to dress in more typically 'feminine' clothing without worrying what others would think, which is very different in comparison to where I'm from. In my hometown, we usually have to censor what we wear because it's a more conservative area. It was very refreshing to see queer people dancing and having a good time and being able to be themselves without worrying about what others would say or do. Additionally, I saw people using poppers for the first time in real life here. A lot of the guys were offering them to the people around them and trying to make it so everyone had an enjoyable time. I didn't personally partake, but it was interesting for me to observe this part of queer culture. The people at the club were friendly and were just looking to have fun, not start fights or bring any negative energy to the space. I've found that cis het men can sometimes bring a violent or entitled vibe to the club that nobody enjoys, so it was nice to be surrounded by guys who just wanted to dance. There were also a few quieter spaces to go to if you were tired of the music, like the indoor smoking room. I enjoyed this aspect of the club because it was less crowded and you could actually have a conversation with someone. I don't smoke cigarettes, but my friends do so we ended up in there a few times. We made a lot of friends that night. Although I did have a drink spilled on me on the dance floor, I still felt safer and more comfortable at this club than any others that I have been to. I would recommend Le Petit Salon to anyone looking for a queer-friendly place to dance and get drinks. The music was good and the vibes were great.

Baston? Révolution!

 I really enjoy drag culture. 

So naturally, I wanted to seek out a place where I could immerse myself in the drag community of Lyon. When searching online I was honestly surprised to see how often drag events were hosted throughout the city with at least one event every month. In Reno we have one (maybe two if the queens are feeling benevolent) event every year, and even then they don’t tend to have high turnouts. I couldn’t find any events to attend that would fit my schedule but I found out that the bar, Baston, right across (literally) from my apartment was listed as a gay bar and was renowned throughout Lyon for hosting drag shows. I didn’t want to go alone, so I asked a couple of my friends if they wanted to come and off we went to Baston. 

When you walk in, you find yourself in a relatively small room with the bar on the left hand side. The bar itself has a bunch of plants falling down from the ceiling, which I thought was a nice touch. As for the rest of the bar, I don’t recall anything about the decor that rampantly screamed gay. Well, I digress. In the middle of the room is a couch, and on that couch is a plushed figurine of a cow on top of which sits Spongebob Squarepants.

 “Oh my…” I whispered to myself. “That’s rather suspect.” 

If you take a look around the walls you’ll quickly notice just how many trinkets and other assorted paraphernalia plastered on the walls. I found myself inspecting them in an effort to one up my spongebob observation. The more that I searched the more appeared before me. I noticed that there were a great amount of printed photographs, many of which showing what appears to be drag queens. They didn’t have any drag events going on that night, so I was left to assume that they were taken in the bar at some other point.

 At first I found the bar to be incredibly dead. It was me, my friends, another person, and the bartender all sitting in relative quietness. All of a sudden, a man named Sébastien manifested himself and approached my group. After talking to himfor a bit we suddenly heard roaring applause come from a crowd of people we couldn’t see. I jerked my head back to Spongebob and squinted. Still in the same position. 

“Where did that come from?” I asked Sébastien. 

“Oh, they’re doing improv in the back.” He responded. 

There’s a back? We asked ourselves. Collectively we decided to continue exploring the place. 

Once you make your way to the back, you find yourself in a small hallway plastered with drag paraphilia. Everything from drag to queens, they have it on those walls. I found myself appreciating this greatly because you could tell that this bar was a Bastion for the drag community. Hidden right next to the doorway, which I assume with the intent to scare people, is a gigantic mannequin with makeup drawn onto its face. Traversing further into the bar we found another lobby with a handful of people sitting down conversing. At the very end, we found ourselves in yet another room albeit much larger than the front lobby. There sat a group of may twenty people with actors running amuck. We sat ourselves down and began watching the show. 

I found the show to be hilarious, from what I understood. We began with talking about bananas, which evolved into casseroles, and ultimately about France’s social hierarchy and politics? Nothing LGBT related, unfortunately. 

I feel as though if I came on a different day or even at a different time the ambience would have been completely different. But either way, it’s a really interesting place and I’m happy to have made the adventure out there. The bar gave me the feeling of an English pub and I don't think that it began out as a gay bar, rather evolving into that. I find that to be a really nice thought, because as our society advances we’re finding ways to integrate more diverse identities into our collective communities. If any of you get the chance to check it out, I highly recommend it.